Second-graders Study Scientist Charles Henry Turner

In honor of Black History Month, each school day in February, Lotspeich students learned about African American changemakers throughout history. Science teacher Kate LaBare taught second-graders about changemaker Charles Henry Turner, a Cincinnati-born entomologist and naturalist. LaBare first read students the book, “Buzzing with Questions: The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner” by Janice N. Harrington, and students learned about Turner’s passion for asking questions, hard work, science, and insects. LaBare then asked students to “observe like Charles,” where each student chose a handful of different realistic plastic invertebrates. “The students honed their observation skills by seeing how the examples were the same and different,” LaBare said. They also brainstormed new questions that they wondered about, such as, “why do spiders have eight legs but insects have six,” and “do all lady bugs have seven spots?”